Read Ebook: More Bed-Time Stories by Moulton Louise Chandler Ledyard Addie Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 771 lines and 46126 words, and 16 pages

"The benefits which have been supposed from their liberal use in medicine, and especially in those diseases which are vulgarly supposed to depend upon mere weakness, have invested these agents with attributes to which they have no claim, and hence, as we physicians no longer employ them as we were wont to do, we ought not to rest satisfied with the mere acknowledgment of error, but we ought also to make every retribution in our power for having so long upheld one of the most fatal delusions that ever took possession of the human mind."

Dr. Higginbotham, F. R. S., of Nottingham, a keen and able clinical practitioner, abandoned the prescription of alcohol in 1832, saying:--

This declaration was in part as follows:--

"As it is believed that the inconsiderate prescription of large quantities of alcoholic liquids by medical men for their patients has given rise, in many instances, to the formation of intemperate habits, the undersigned, while unable to abandon the use of alcohol in the treatment of certain cases of disease, are yet of opinion that no medical practitioner should prescribe it without a sense of grave responsibility.

"They are also of opinion that many people immensely exaggerate the value of alcohol as an article of diet, and they hold that every medical practitioner is bound to exert his utmost influence to inculcate habits of great moderation in the use of alcoholic liquids."

In the same year the American Medical Association passed a resolution that "alcohol should be classed with other powerful drugs, and when prescribed medically, it should be done with conscientious caution, and a sense of great responsibility."

The physicians of New York, Brooklyn and vicinity not long afterward published a declaration practically the same as that of the A. M. A., adding: "We are of opinion that the use of alcoholic liquor as a beverage is productive of a large amount of physical disease."

The publication of these later declarations was the beginning of a marked change in the medical use of alcohol.

In England the scientific temperance movement began with Dr. B. W. Richardson, afterwards knighted by Queen Victoria for his great services to humanity as a medical philanthropist. Dr. Richardson's success in bringing before physicians the remarkable medicinal agent known as nitrite of amyl, led to a request from the British Association for the Advancement of Science that he investigate other chemical substances. The result was that several years of study, beginning with 1863, were given to the physiological effects of various alcohols, ethylic alcohol, which is the active principle in wines, beers and other intoxicating drinks, receiving special attention.

The following is taken from his "Results of Researches on Alcohol":--

"In my hands ethylic alcohol and other bodies of the same group; viz. methylic, propylic, butylic, and amylic alcohols were tested purely from the physiological point of view. They were tested exclusively as chemical substances apart from any question as to their general use and employment, and free from all bias for or against their influence on mankind for good or for evil.

"The results of these researches were that I learned purely by experimental observation that, in its action on the living body, alcohol deranges the constitution of the blood; unduly excites the heart and respiration; paralyzes the minute blood-vessels; disturbs the regularity of nervous action; lowers the animal temperature, and lessens the muscular power.

"Such, independent of any prejudice of party or influence of sentiment, are the unanswerable teachings of the sternest of all evidences, the evidences of experiment, of natural fact revealed to man by testing of natural phenomena."

When Dr. Richardson reported to the Association for the Advancement of Science the results of his researches so at variance with commonly accepted ideas, the Association was as incredulous as the American Medical Association had been in 1851 when Dr. Davis gave a similar report, and Dr. Richardson's paper was returned to him for correction.

It should be statroughly, for if you should once undertake this thing and lead Miss Atkinson and Alice to depend on it, there could be no drawing back then."

"Yes, I have thought about it all. Didn't you see me working it out in my head this afternoon, like a sum in arithmetic? I think half the money papa gives me for lunches, and presents, and the other things pocket-money goes for, would be just as good for me as the whole; and I am sure with half of it I could keep Alice along nicely after I once got her started; and its just about this start I want to speak to you now. Papa gave me a hundred and twenty-five dollars to-day to buy me a blue silk gown for Aunt Jane's Christmas-Eve party. Now fifty dollars will get me a lovely white muslin, and a blue sash, and all the fresh little fixings I should need; and that would leave seventy-five dollars, with which I could buy flannels, and boots, and water-proof, and a good, warm, strong outfit altogether, for Alice to commence with. Now do you think papa would be willing? I don't want to ask him, for he doesn't understand silks and muslins, or what Alice needs; but would you answer for him? Just think, mamma, what burdens poor Miss Atkinson has to bear."

"Yes, I will answer for papa, my darling. I approve your plan heartily, but I will not offer help. This shall be all your own good work."

The next morning Miss Atkinson was told of the new plan. Her faded eyes opened twice as widely as usual. She was not sure she heard aright.

"Do you mean to say Miss Kathie, that you undertake, with your mamma's full consent, to clothe Alice until she is through school?"

"That is precisely what I bind myself to do," Kathie answered, gravely copying the solemnity of the little dress-maker.

"Then all I have to say is, bless you, and bless the Lord. You never can tell what good you're doing."

And then the poor little woman began to cry, just for pure joy; and she sobbed till Mamma Mason felt her eyes growing misty, and Kathie ran away out of the room.

Be sure that Miss Atkinson made up Kathie's muslin lovingly. It would not be her fault if it were not prettier than any silk. And truly, when Christmas Eve came and Kathie was dressed for Aunt Jane's party, there could hardly have been a more radiant vision than this white-robed shape with the sunny, soft hair, the gleaming brown eyes, and the wild-rose cheeks, where the color came and went. Her father looked her over with all his heart in his eyes, and a tenderness which quivered in his voice, though he tried to speak jestingly.

"So there wasn't blue sky enough for any thing but your sash, and you had to take white clouds for the rest."

He bent and kissed her.

"Yes, I like the clouds; and I think the sunshine struck through them for somebody."

THE COUSIN FROM BOSTON.

We were always together. We went to the same school, and sat on the same bench, and used the same desk. We learned the same lessons. I had almost said we thought the same thoughts. We certainly loved the same pleasures. We used to go together, in early spring, to hunt the dainty may-flowers from under the sheltering dead leaves, and to find the shy little blue-eyed violets. We went hand in hand into the still summer woods, and gathered the delicate maiden-hair, and the soft mosses, and all the summer wealth of bud and blossom. Gay little birds sang to us. The deep blue sky bent over us, and the happy little brooks murmured and frolicked at our feet.

In autumn we went nutting and apple gathering. In the winter we slid, and coasted, and snowballed. For every season, there was some special pleasure,--and always Nelly and I were together,--always sufficient to each other, for company. We never dreamed that any thing could come between us, or that we could ever learn to live without each other.

We were thirteen when Nelly's cousin from Boston--Lill Simmonds, her name was--came to see her. It was vacation then, and I had not seen Nelly for two days, because it had been raining hard. So I did not know of the expected guest, until one morning Nelly's brother Tom came over, and told me that his Aunt Simmonds, from Boston, was expected that noon, and with her his Cousin Lill.

"She'll be a nice playmate for you and Nelly," he said. "She's only a year older than you two, and she used to have plenty of fun in her. Nelly wants you to come over this afternoon, sure."

That was the beginning of my feeling hard toward Nelly. I was unreasonable, I know, but I thought she might have come to tell me the news, herself. I felt a sort of bitter, shut-out feeling all the forenoon, and after dinner I was half minded not to go over,--to let her have her Boston cousin all to herself.

My mother heard some of my speeches, but she was wise enough not to interfere. When she saw, at last, that curiosity and inclination had gotten the better of pique and jealousy, she basted a fresh ruffle in the neck of my afternoon dress, and tied a pretty blue ribbon in my hair, and I looked as neat and suitable for the occasion as possible.

At least I thought so, until I got to Nelly's. She did not watch for my coming, and run to the gate to meet me, as usual. Of course it was perfectly natural that she should be entertaining her cousin, but I missed the accustomed greeting; and when she heard my voice at the door, and came out of the parlor to speak to me, I know that if my face reflected my heart, it must have worn a most sullen and unamiable expression.

"I'm so glad you've come, Sophie," she said cheerfully. "Lill is in the parlor. I want you to like her. But you can't help it, I know, she's so lovely; such a beauty."

"Perhaps I shan't see with your eyes," I answered, with what I imagined to be most cutting coldness and dignity.

"Oh yes! I guess you will," she laughed. "We have thought alike about most things, all our lives."

I followed her into the parlor, and I saw Lill. If you are a country girl who read, and have ever been suddenly confronted with a city young lady in the height of fashion, to whom you were expected to make yourself agreeable, you can, perhaps, understand what I felt; particularly if by nature you are not only sensitive, but somewhat vain, as I am sorry to confess I was. I had been used to think myself as well-dressed, and as well-looking as any of my young neighbors; I was neither as well-dressed nor as well-looking as Lill Simmonds.

Nelly was right. She was a beauty. She was a little taller than Nelly or I,--a slender, graceful creature, with a high-bred air. It was years before they had begun to crimp little girls' hair, but I think Lill's must have been crimped. It was a perfect golden cloud about her face and shoulders, and all full of little shining waves and ripples. Then what eyes she had--star bright and deep blue and with lashes so long that when they drooped they cast a shadow on the pale pink of her cheeks. Her features were all delicate and pure; her hands white, with one or two glittering rings upon them; and her clothes! My own gowns had not seemed to me ill-made before; but now I thought Nelly and I both looked as if we had come out of the ark. It was the first of September, and her dress had just been made for fall,--a rich, glossy, blue poplin, with soft lace at throat and wrists, and a pin and some tiny ear jewels of exquisitely cut pink coral.

I spoke to her politely enough, I suppose; and she answered me, it might have been either shyly or haughtily: I chose in my then mood to think the latter. Decidedly the afternoon was not a success.

We might have brightened a little over the supper, but then Mrs. Simmonds, who had been sitting upstairs with Nelly's mother, was present,--a stately dame, in rustling silk and gleaming jewels, who overawed me completely. I was glad to go home; but the little root of bitterness I had carried in my heart had grown, until, for the time, it choked out every thing sweet and good.

While the Boston cousin stayed, I saw little of Nelly. I am telling the truth, and I must confess it was my fault. I know now that Nelly was unchanged; but, of course, she was very much occupied. Whenever I saw her she was so full of Lill's praises that I foolishly thought I was nothing to her any more, and Lill was every thing. If I had chosen to verify her words, instead of chafe at them, I, too, might have enjoyed Lill's grace and beauty, and learned from her a great many things worth knowing. But I took my own course, and if the cup I drank was bitter, it was of my own brewing.

At last, one afternoon, Nelly came over by herself to see me. I was most ungracious in my welcome.

"I don't see how you could tear yourself away from your city company," I said, with that small, hateful sarcasm, which is so often a girl's weapon. "They say self-denial is blest: I hope yours will be."

Perhaps Nelly guessed that my hatefulness had its root in pain; or it may have been that her own heart was too full of something else for her to notice my mood.

"Lill is going to-morrow," she said, gently.

"Indeed!" I answered; "I don't know how the town will support the loss of so much beauty and grace. I suppose I shall see more of you then; but I must not be selfish enough to rejoice in the general misfortune."

Nelly's gentle eyes filled with tears at last.

"Sophie," she said, "how can you be so unkind, you whom I have loved all my life? I am going, too, with Lill, and that is what I came to tell you. Ever since she has been here, Aunt Simmonds has been trying to persuade mother to let me go back for a year's schooling with Lill, but it was not decided until last night. Mother thought, at first, that I must wait to have my winter things made; but Aunt Simmonds said she could get them better in Boston, and the same woman would make them for me who makes Lill's."

"Indeed! How well dressed you will be!" I said bitterly. "How you will respect yourself!"

She put her arms round me, even then, and kissed me, and I responded coldly. Oh how could I, when I loved her so? I watched her out of sight, and then I sank down upon the grass, and laid my head upon a little bench where we had often sat together, and sobbed and cried till I could scarcely see. I was half tempted to go over to Nelly's, and ask her to forgive me; but my wicked pride and jealousy wouldn't let me. Lill would be there, I thought, and she wouldn't want me while she had Lill. So I stayed away.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet